The past few weeks have been very, very busy. I am officially leaving for Peru in mid March, so I have had to kick everything into high gear. I have finally finished my job as a manager at Baja Fresh. I have worked on and off at Baja since high school, and they treated me really well. It definitely helped me keep up on my Spanish skills during my time in the states, but I just am not cut out to be a restaurant manager the rest of my life! I had to laugh when I pulled out an old personality test from sophomore year at IWU. It gave me some recommendations for different career choices in the future--restaurant manager was rated as the second worst career for my personality type. I have to agree. In case anyone is wondering, the worst career for me, according to this test, was fashion designer :-)
The rest of the month of February into early March is filled with traveling around the US, and beginning the goodbye process. During the first week of February I traveled back down to IWU for the final time. Many of my friends are still studying there, and it was a good chance to spend one last weekend living on campus.
I had a chance last week to make it to California for the first time in my life. I went to visit my friend Paul, who I met in Costa Rica during my study abroad semester in college. Aside from rainy weather almost every day, I really enjoyed my time to reconnect with an old friend. Paul and his friends were great tour guides. I got to see many different parts of the Bay Area! One of the only times that we had good weather was during our walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. What a beautiful place! Here are some pictures...
From San Francisco, I headed down to Miami for a really quick day and a half trip. The Latin America Mission (the missions agency that is sending me to Peru) is based out of Miami. I had to finish up some paperwork before being deployed to Peru, but my trip ended up coinciding with the Miami office's day of prayer. It was such a blessing to reconnect with the office staff and to spend the day in God's word and praying for each other. I had the chance to say goodbye to the old president of the LAM and to meet the new president. It was a quick, but refreshing trip.
That brings us to my current location! I flew from Miami to Nashville on Thursday to visit two different groups of friends. I spent Thursday and Friday visiting some friends from home who are studying at Belmont, and this weekend I am visiting a church that I first connected with over the summer in Peru. Everyone on this trip has been incredibly hospitable, and I have really enjoyed my time. Last night I had to opportunity to see everyone from the work team that I hosted over the summer. After dinner some of us went down and showed me around downtown Nashville. Let me tell you...if you have never been to Nashville, it is quite an interesting place to check out!
Over the next couple of weeks, I am still going to Canada to visit friends and family, and then we are taking a family vacation to New York City. I will post pictures and give a further update in the days to come!
WITH FRIENDS FROM IWU
OVER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
WITH NATALIE FROM MY PROGRAM IN COSTA RICA
WITH MY FAMILY IN THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT
BLUE MAN GROUP WAS AWESOME!
